Search:

More info on Seti II

Seti II: Map

Wikipedia article:

Map showing all locations mentioned on Wikipedia article:

Seti II (or Sethos II), was the
fifth ruler of the Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt and
reigned from 1203 BC - 1197 BC. His throne name, Userkheperure
Setepenre, meant "Powerful are the Manifestations of Re, Chosen by Re.' He was the son of Merneptah and wife Isisnofret and sat on the throne during a period
known for dynastic intrigue and short reigns, and his rule was no
different. Seti II had to deal with many serious plots, most
significantly being the accession of a rival king named Amenmesse, possibly a half brother, who seized
control over Thebes and Nubia in Upper Egypt during his second to fourth
regnal years.

Contest for the throne

Evidence
that Amenmesse was a direct contemporary with Seti II's rule—rather
than Seti II's immediate predecessor—includes the fact that Seti
II's royal KV13 tomb at
Thebes was deliberately vandalised with many of Seti's royal names
being carefully erased here during his reign.Aidan Dodson,
The Decorative Phases of the Tomb of Sethos II and their
Historical Implications, JEA 85 (1999),
pp.136-38 The erasures were subsequently repaired by Seti
II's agents. This suggests that Seti II's reign at Thebes was
interrupted by the rise of a rival: king Amenmesse in Upper
Egypt. Secondly, the German scholar Wolfgang Helck
has shown that Amenmesse is only attested in Upper Egypt by several
Year 3 and a single Year 4 ostracas here; Helck also noted that no
Year 1 or Year 2 ostracas from Deir El Medina could legitimately be assigned to Amenmesse's
reign. This conforms well with the clear evidence of Seti
II's control over Thebes in his first two years which is documented
by various documents and papyri. In contrast, Seti II is absent
from Upper Egypt during his third and fourth years which are
notably unattested here—presumably because Amenmesse controlled
this region during this time.

Finally, and most importantly, it is well known that the chief
foreman of Deir el-Medina, a certain Neferhotep, was killed in the
reign of king Amenmesse on the orders of a certain 'Msy' who was
either Amenmesse himself or one of this king's agents, according to
Papyrus Salt 124. However, the chief workman Neferhotep is attested
in office in the work register list of Ostraca MMA 14.6.217 which
also recorded Seti II's accession to the throne and was later
reused to register worker's absence from work under this king's
reign. If Seti II's 6 year reign followed that of the usurper
Amenmesse, then this chief foreman would not have been mentioned in
a document which dated to the start of Seti II's reign since
Neferhotep was already dead. This indicates that the reigns of
Amenmesse and Seti II must have partly overlapped with one another
and suggests that both rulers were rivals who were fighting each
another for the throne of Egypt. During the second to fourth years
of Amenmesse/Seti II's parallel reigns, Amenmesse gained the upper
hand and seized control over Upper Egypt and Nubia; he ordered Seti
II's tomb in the Valley of the Kings to be vandalised. Prior to his
fifth year, however, Amenmesse was finally defeated by his rival,
Seti II who was the legitimate successor to the throne since he was
Merneptah's son. Seti II, in turn, launched a damnatio memoriae
campaign against all inscriptions and monuments belonging to both
Amenmesse and this king's chief supporters in Thebes and Nubia
which included a certain Khaemter, a former Viceroy of Kush, who
had served as Amenmesse's Vizier. Seti II's agents completely erased both
scenes and texts from KV10, the royal
tomb of Amenmesse. Vizier Khaemter's scenes in Nubia which
were carved when he served as the Viceroy of Kush were so
thoroughly erased that until Rolf Krauss' and Labib Habachi's
articles were published in the 1970s, his career here as viceroy
was almost unknown notes Frank J. Yurco.

Reign

Seti II
promoted Chancellor Bay to become his
most important state official and built 3 tombs – KV13, KV14, and
KV15 – for himself, his Senior Queen Twosret and Bay in the Valley of the
Kings. This was an unprecedented act on his part
for Bay, who was of Syrian descent and was not connected by
marriage or blood ties to the royal family. Due to the relative
brevity of his reign, Seti's tomb was unfinished at the time of his
death. Twosret later rose to power herself after the death of
Siptah, Seti II's successor. According to a
graffito written in the first corridor of Twosret's KV14 tomb, Seti
II was buried in his KV15 tomb on
"Year 1, IV Peret day 11" of Siptah.

Seti II's earliest prenomen in his First Year was 'Userkheperure
Setepenre'Frank Joseph Yurco, Was Amenmesse the Viceroy of
Kush, Messuwy?JARCE 39 (1997), pp.49-56 which is
written above an inscription of Messuwy, a Viceroy of Nubia under Merneptah, on a rock
outcropping at Bigeh Island. However, Messuwy's burial in Tomb S90
in Nubia has been discovered to contain only funerary objects
naming Merneptah which suggests that 1) Messuwy may have died
during Merneptah's reign and 2) Seti II merely associated himself
with an official who had actively served his father as Viceroy of
Kush. Seti II soon changed his royal name to 'Userkheperure
Meryamun', which was the most common form of his prenomen.

Two important papyri date from the reign of Seti II. The first of
these is the Tale of Two
Brothers, a fabulous story of troubles within a family on the
death of their father, which may have been intended in part as
political satire on the situation of the two half brothers. The
second is the records of the trial of Paneb. Neferhotep, one of the
two chief workmen of the Deir el Medina necropolis, had been replaced by Paneb, his
troublesome son-in-law. Many crimes were alleged by
Neferhotep's brother—Amennakhte—against Paneb in a violently worded
indictment preserved in papyrus now in the British Museum. If
Amennakhte's testimony can be trusted, Paneb had allegedly stolen
stone from the tomb of Seti II while still working on its
completion—for the embellishment of his own tomb—besides purloining
or damaging other property belonging to that monarch. Paneb was
also accused of trying to kill Neferhotep, his adopted
father-in-law, despite being educated by the latter and after the
murder of Neferhotep by 'the enemy,' Paneb had reportedly bribed
the Vizier Pra'emhab in order to usurp his father's office.
Whatever the truth of these accusations, it is clear that Thebes
was going through very troubled times. There are references
elsewhere to a 'war' that had occurred during these years, but it
is obscure to what this word alludes, perhaps to no more than
internal disturbances and discontent. Neferhotep had complained of
Paneb's attacks on himself to the vizier Amenmose, presumably a
predecessor of Pra'emhab, whereupon Amenmose had punished Paneb.
This trouble-maker had then brought a complaint before 'Mose' (ie:
'Msy'), who then acted to remove Pra'emhab from his office.
Evidently this 'Mose' must have been a person of the highest
importance, perhaps the king Amenmesse
himself or a senior ally of the king.

Seti II
also expanded the copper mining at Timna in Edom, building an important temple to Hathor the cow goddess in the region.
Abandoned in the late Bronze Age collapse, where a part of the
temple seems to have been used by Midianite nomads, linked to the worship of a
bronze serpent discovered in the area.
Seti II
also founded a station for a barge on the courtyard in front of the
pylon II at Karnak, and chapels
of Theban triad – Amun, Mut
and Khonsu.

Wives and Treasure

Seti II had three Queens in all: Twosret,
possibly his half sister, Takhat and Tiaa, his third wife. Twosret is known
to have survived him since she later served as Siptah's queen regent before she succeeded to the
throne in her own right. Her name is recorded in Manetho's Epitome
as a certain 'Thuoris' who is assigned a reign of 7 years.

In January 1908, the Egyptologist Edward R.Ayrton, in an excavation conducted for
Theodore M.Davis, discovered a small burial in tomb
KV56 which Davis referred to as 'The Gold Tomb'
in his publication of the discovery in the Valley of the Kings; it
proved to contain a small cache of jewellry that featured the name
of Seti II. A sets of "earrings, finger-rings, bracelets, a series
of necklace ornaments and amulets, a pair of silver 'gloves' and a
tiny silver sandal" were found within this tomb.

Jac Janssen, "Amenmesse and After: The chronology of the late
Nineteenth Dynasty Ostraca" in 'Village Varia. Ten Studies on the
History and Administration of Deir el-Medina,' (Egyptologische
Utigaven 11), Leiden; 1997, pp.99-109